Sydney Stock Exchange’s blockchain system targets venture capital funds, commodities
Two-year-old Sydney Stock Exchange is building a blockchain settlement system to avoid high ASX fees and build a market for venture capital funds to exit their investments and commodities markets. The distributed ledger will initially only be used to settle trades in private companies, but once regulatory approval is gained, it will settle trades in publicly listed stocks. SSX will promote the new settlement system as a low cost alternative to the ASX to try to attract private equity funds to exit their investments by listing on the SSX. Settlement instantaneous Once complete in early 2018, SSX hopes to sell versions of its system – which is being built with […]
SocietyOne shifts from edgy start-up to $100m lender
The nation’s biggest peer-to-peer lender, SocietyOne, is growing up fast, and not in the same way as its renegade US cousin Lending Club. An ASIC search has revealed the stranglehold of the so-called media consortium (News Corp, Kerry Stokes and James Packer’s media-free Consolidated Press Holdings) over SocOne after the recent $25 million Series C capital raising. The consortium, through its vehicle S. One Holding, holds a commanding 37 per cent stake, with the News and Stokes interests believed to be dominant in the S. One Holding structure. Not only that, but Westpac’s in-house venture capital fund, Reinventure, speaks for a further 17 per cent of SocOne. Put the two […]
P2P lender SocietyOne eyes growth in market share
SocietyOne, the nation’s biggest marketplace lender, has forecast it will be cash-flow positive within two years, confirming it had raised an extra $25 million to support its growth plans. Completion of the Series C raising, revealed by The Australian last month, came as new chief executive Jason Yetton committed to a five-year goal to build a 2-3 per cent share of the $105 billion consumer finance market. “The opportunities that lie ahead of us are immense,” said Mr Yetton, a former senior Westpac executive. SocOne’s raising had a number of notable features, including a powerful consortium of billionaire shareholders taking a tighter grip on the company. Mr Yetton said Kerry […]
Manning targets super funds for P2P investor
Former JANA asset consultant Joshua Manning will be raiding his contact book of super fund investment chiefs as he does the rounds pitching his new business, Manning Market Place. His vision for the start-up specialist investment fund is to focus exclusively on the burgeoning peer-to-peer lending sector. Peer-to-peer (P2P), otherwise known as marketplace lending, is the buzzword for the plethora of online-based or “fintech” start-ups gnawing at the edges of the big banks’ loan books. After leaving his day job at the asset consulting arm of National Australia Bank late last year, Manning’s first investment is a stake in the darling of the local P2P set, SocietyOne. Other shareholders in […]
Sapien Ventures’ first fintech investment is in Hashching
Wealthy Chinese migrants will help disrupt the Australian mortgage broking industry via an investment in Hashching, an online marketplace for home loans that is putting pressure on banks and their brokers. The investment will be the first for Sapien Ventures, which was established last year by Victor Jiang and has raised a $50 million fund to invest in fintech and online marketplaces. Much of the capital has been raised from high-net-worth Chinese migrants after changes to the Significant Investor Visa program last year that require migrants bringing $5 million into Australia to invest at least $500,000 in eligible venture capital. Sapien Ventures has invested $1 million in Hashching, and is […]
Focused fintechs get the nod from Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley once threw money at start-ups that aimed to disrupt broad swaths of finance. Now it is rewarding those that have sharpened their focus. While overall venture funding into lending start-ups is slowing, some platforms still are raising money by taking aim at narrower or less-traditional borrowing niches than the first generation of financial-technology firms. Faced with a glut of online lenders and cooling interest from investors in some loans, a newer crop of fintech start-ups is focusing on areas including loans for real-estate projects, people with poor credit ratings, car buyers and, at the extreme, people getting married. Venture funding for US lending start-ups dropped to $US298 million […]
Global FinTechs take on Big Four in new Australian frontier
When U.S.-based financial technology company Acorns launched in Australia in February, its mobile app that helps people invest loose pennies in stock markets received nearly 70,000 downloads in just over two months, beating its own expectations. The ‘virtual piggy bank’ chose Australia as its first foreign market thanks to the country’s deep Internet and mobile penetration and tech-savvy population, Managing Director George Lucas told Reuters. Acorns’ entry is a reflection of rising interest in Australia from overseas financial technology – or FinTech – companies, drawn by its heavy banking concentration and limited competition, consultants and financial advisors said. The country’s $348 million alternate finance lending market, which includes peer-to-peer lending […]
Fintech Market Growth to Add A$1 Billion New Value to Australian Economy by 2020
The global Fintech sector exhibited robust growth in 2014 when investment activity tripled to US$12.21 billion from US$4.05 billion in 2013. This activity continued in 2015 with an increase in global funding into Venture Capital (VC) backed Fintech startups. Fintech growth in 2015 was international, and Frost & Sullivan anticipates this international dispersion, as well as the global growth trend to continue with more Fintech companies successfully reaching the exit stage of funding in 2016. In the Asia-Pacific region, Fintech investments were concentrated in Australia, China and Singapore, and in 2015, skyrocketed to reach US$3.46b – a four-fold increase from 2014 to 2015. Asian Fintechs garnered strong support, with funding […]
